Define Unnatural
by Laura Schiller
Summary: Lena finds out the truth about Bram and Hunter's relationship, with awkward results. She may have left Portland, but that doesn't mean Portland has left her.


Define Unnatural

By Laura Schiller

Based on: The Delirium Trilogy

Copyright: Lauren Oliver

I was sitting next to Hunter in the dining room when it happened, chatting about something I can't even remember now. What happened was that his friend Bram (short for Bramble; a slight, brown-haired young man I didn't know very well), who had been sitting on Hunter's other side, stood up, muttered something about checking the rabbit snares – "See you," said Hunter, cheerfully – and suddenly, just like that, Bram leaned down and kissed the top of Hunter's tousled blond head.

I stared. I couldn't help it.

They stared back: Hunter with a smirk, Bram with a glare as thorny as his name, both of them embarrassing me to the tips of my scavenged sneakers. I ducked my head. Was this another Wilds custom I didn't know about, like sleeping in groups and watching each other change?

"Got a problem?" asked Bram, in a low, tense voice that cut right through the chatter around us.

"Easy," said Hunter, putting a hand on his chest. "She's new, remember? Only been here for what, two weeks? C'mon, Lena. Don't tell me you've never heard of people like us."

He winked at me, which didn't exactly help my confusion. Here was the same sunny, outgoing Hunter who had become my only friend in the Wilds (except for Raven, who was more of a young mother than a friend), looking completely casual after a scene so alien to me. It made my head spin.

"A-are you … are you Unnaturals?" I asked them.

Bram scoffed and walked away, hands buried in his shirt pockets. Hunter watched him go, then turned to me. It was the first time I'd seen him without a spark in his blue eyes.

"Don't worry about Bram," he said. "He'll come around. It's just … we don't use that word around here, okay?"

I blushed. Of course they wouldn't. It made perfect sense that people attracted to members of the same sex would come to the Wilds for sanctuary as well. And of course they wouldn't like being labeled by government terms, anymore than certain resistance members liked being called Invalids.

"Sorry," I said. "I didn't mean … it's just, I've never really met one before. I'm kind of surprised, that's all."

"So we noticed," he teased, making me giggle a bit at my own awkwardness.

Part of me had always been secretly curious about these people, who lived among us like some secret alien race. They were unnatural, so we'd been taught, because their forms of sexual intercourse were unable to produce children, which is the only right and natural purpose of sex. It always seemed a bit too unbelievable to me – how can two people have sex if they both have the same parts? Not to mention creepy, because you couldn't segregate them like you could boys and girls, and for all I knew, some could have been checking me out in the girls' locker room.

I hadn't expected one to be so … normal.

"So what _do_ you call yourselves?" I asked.

"Nothing." Hunter shrugged. "What do _you_ call yourslf for loving boys? I'm assuming you do," he added, seeing my frown, "Or you wouldn't be so shocked right now."

_Just one boy,_ I nearly said. I could imagine the way my friend's eyes would shine with sympathy, how he would touch my arm in that Invalid way to support me as I choked out my story. But I didn't want his sympathy, or anyone's. I didn't want to remember. Raven's philosophy was my own: there was no before.

I blinked hard, cleared my throat, and dragged my thoughts back to the present.

"I get what you mean," I told Hunter. "I shouldn't have said those things. I'm sorry."

"Live and learn," Hunter replied, quoting Raven, as he toasted me with his tin can of water. I lifted my own can to tap it against his, feeling oddly like a stranger introducing herself all over again.

"So how long have you and Bram been … um, together?"

"About a year now. Almost since he came here." Hunter's face turned soft, like Hana's used to when we listened to those magical underground concerts in Deering Highlands. "Want to hear about it?"

"Sure."

"Raven named him Bramble because he was found in the woods, you know. All cut up from lying on a thorn bush. I looked after him. Raven says I've got a gift for medicine."

I remembered him helping her to look after me, during those agonizing days I thought of as my second birth. He looked down at his hands with a proud little smile, as if remembering all the healing they had done, but the smile soon faded as he continued his story.

"He wouldn't let me out of his sight. Bram, I mean. You wouldn't think so to look at him now, but he was like a scared little boy. He was in bad shape – some of the cuts got infected. And there were other things. Private things. I was the only one who could get him to calm down."

He sighed, the memories of his lover's pain weighing down his shoulders like a stone. For the first time, I realized how strong he must be, hiding so much under those carefree smiles of his. Was it hard for him, being a man who loves men? Had he ever felt sick and diseased and – well, unnatural, for something he couldn't help being? As for Bram, what had been done to him that hurt so much?

"So … one night," Hunter continued, his ears turning pink. "By the time he was just about recovered … he just pulled me down on the bed and asked me to stay the night. I could've pulled free, of course, but I … didn't want to." His lips twitched, holding back a grin. "I knew I wanted _him_ all along, but I wasn't sure he felt the same way. Didn't want to take advantage of him as my patient, if you know what I mean. He sure proved me wrong."

His grin broke free, illuminating his entire face. I thought of that kiss a few moments ago, golden hair against tanned skin, sweet and simple and everyday. After so much pain, finding love must have been a miracle for them, like that first sip of cold water when you're dying of fever. Like sunshine after a long tunnel.

Like the sound of laughter high above the chaos around you, making you look up and see the blaze of autumn leaves.

He wasn't unnatural. An unnatural thing is something that couldn't happen in nature. It was the cure that was unnatural, turning people like us into zombies with the cut of a scalpel. Hunter and Bram's love was every bit as natural as my own.

"That's a good story," I told him, reaching out to touch his arm. It was the first time I had touched someone on purpose since the night of the fence. There was no spark this time, of course, and I didn't expect any. Beneath my fingertips, I found the warm solidity of a friend.

"You're a good listener," he said.


End file.
